The present invention relates to the personalization or individualization of a vehicle such as an automobile through the use of a display, for example the owner's name, in a manner fully integral with the overall design and appearance of the vehicle.
Personalization or individualization of automobiles, such as by customizing, has probably been popular for as long as there have been automobiles, and it would seem that personalization of vehicles generally is much older. Personalization has taken a wide variety of forms, from the unique design of an entire vehicle body, to custom interior design, specialized exterior trim and unique individualized paint jobs.
One form of personalization generally has been the application to the vehicle of some form of the owner's name, sometimes in the form of a license plate-type display, and in some instances by painting the name or initials directly on the vehicle. With the possible exception of very small carefully executed sets of personalized initials, usually mounted or painted on the vehicle door, the application of a name to an automobile has generally been less than completely compatible with the vehicle's overall design and appearance. That is, application of the name appears to be an addition, or afterthought, rather than an integral feature of the vehicle itself, and may detract from the integrity and unity of the vehicle's appearance.
The popularity of this form of automotive personalization is evidenced by the availability of and demand for personalized license plates, bearing for example part of the owner's name or a variation of it instead of a mere arbitrary combination of characters, despite the extra cost of such personalization. This type of display is nevertheless severely limited in the number of characters that can be displayed, and is by no means capable of constituting an integral part of the vehicle's design.